


New Jersey Romance

by Roxy_palace



Category: Bandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-15
Updated: 2009-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:11:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxy_palace/pseuds/Roxy_palace





	New Jersey Romance

** Title: ** New Jersey Romance (1/4)  
 **Pairing:** Frank/Gerard  
** Rating: ** NC 17

My very first fic in this fandom - based on the movie True Romance.  Anywhere else I could post?   


**Warnings:**  Rimming, dirty talk, swears galore.  Violence, H/C and a lot of blood in later chapters. Also, Bert McCracken.  WIP – part two is partially written, fully plotted out, parts three and four are yet a twinkle in my mind’s eye.  
 **Words:** 6907  
Based on Ouentin Tarantino’s True Romance: Gee works in a comic book store, Frank doesn’t. They fall in love. A shit storm ensues.  
Some dialogue lifted directly from the film. Beta by [](http://allyndra.livejournal.com/profile)[ **allyndra**](http://allyndra.livejournal.com/)  . Thanks for not hating it, Superstar. Al kicked ass so there really shouldn’t be any, but if you see any they are totally my fault.  let me know and I'll fix them. Cheerleading by  [](http://try-67.livejournal.com/profile)[ **try_67**](http://try-67.livejournal.com/)   
Thanks buddies!     
This is my first fic in this fandom. Con-crit is positively encouraged and practically begged for.   
 **Disclaimer:** Nothing about this is mine except the mental illness which led me to consider an unholy alliance the likes Tarantino and Bandom. 

 

  _“In a theatre full of empty seats, why’d you pick the one next to mine?”_

_ _

_ I had to come all the way from the highways and byways of Jersey City, NJ to Belleville, also NJ, to find my true love. I know that’s only like an half an hour, twenty minutes by car, tops, but it seems like a million miles. A million years maybe? ‘Cause if you gave me a million years to figure that shit out I would never have said true romance and New Jersey would ever go together. But what do I know? Shit all apparently.  _

_ _

_ Anyway, looking back now it’s like a dream. But it was all real; even the really, truly, crummy parts. I kept asking Gee why everything was going straight down the toilet – and I mean everything going straight to hell. And he’d say, ‘That’s the way it goes. But don’t forget, it goes the other way too.’ Because that’s what Gee is like, you know? Captain frikken Mysterioso. _

_ _

_ So you know, that’s the way romance is… _ usually _that’s the way romance is, but every once in a while it goes the other way too._

_ _

*****

_ _

At twenty to five Gerard’s boss flips the sign on the door and cracks open a couple of cans of Pepsi Max for the two of them. “You should get out of here early tonight,” he says before heading out, knowing full well Gerard rarely feels like it. Even on special nights. Even on his birthday. There are close to 5 thousand books in this comic book store. Gerard hasn’t even scratched the surface yet.

_ _

But a couple of minutes later Gerard discovers an envelope with his name across the front sitting on top of a box of 2000ADs by the back stairs. Inside is a ticket to the weekly ‘all nighter’ at the Roxy Theatre down town. There’s also a crisp new twenty dollar bill and a note saying: _‘Get yourself some pie after the show.’_ Folded up with the note and the twenty isa scrap from the local paper: Tonight @ The Roxy - _Night of the Living Dead_ , _Black Sunday_ and _Repulsion_.

_ _

Gerard tamps down a surge of affection for his boss, tucks the ticket and the $20 in the top pocket of his army jacket and locks up for the night. If he’s humming _happy birthday_ as he watches the neon _BIFFBANGPOW_ store sign flicker out, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

_ _

It's not that Gerard is a loner, not really. It's just that, since he'd moved back to Belleville (slunk back, tail between legs, thoroughly defeated), he hadn't felt much like making the social effort. His brother Mikey was about all the company he'd needed. And even after Mikey moved out, back into the city Gerard had just fled no less, Gerard got all the conversation and company he could want at work. He’s pretty happy with his life, not happy maybe, but comfortable. As happy as he can be, living the better part of it in his head. Gerard doesn't want for anything. He tells himself that every day. Some days he even means it

_ _

*8*

_ _

The movie theatre - warm, musty and practically empty - is exactly how Gerard likes it. The air is sweet and stuffy with the aroma of freshly popped corn and slightly stale boy-sweat. He gets his ticket torn and heads to his seat as quick as he can. The lights are already out when he opens the velvet muffled double doors at the back of the lobby but he has no trouble finding his place in the dark. 

_ _

The seats at the Roxy are velvet covered too; the bottoms flip down and there’re upside down u’s worn into them from the backsides of many, many years. Crusty cigarette burns dot shabby arm rests entirely sans new fangled cup holders. Clammy leather embossed linoleum sucks at the rubber soles of Gerard’s Chucks. There’s the crackle and crunch of pop corn and candy wrappers underfoot as he shuffles down and kicks out his legs. A couple of rows over some one hacks a smokers cough and mutters an apology. Gerard lets himself sink into his seat and relax.      

_ _

Sitting alone in the half-dark with only the flickering lights of movie-land for company is a million times less crummy than sitting on his own in a bar or his apartment, he thinks.

_ _

 

_ _

He hears the guy before he sees him, apologising and giggling as he shuffles past the only other people in the cinema, clumsy and loud in the shimmering light. It’s about 25 minutes into _Night of the Living Dead_ - Barbara is about to meet Ben and a zombie blood bath is about to ensue - so Gerard’s a little distracted when the guy clambers over the back of a row seats into the one behind him. But not even Barbara’s pathetic screams can hold Gerard’s attention a couple of seconds later when an entire extra large box of popcorn is dumped unceremoniously over Gerard’s head. 

_ _

On screen, Ben says, _“Don't you know what's goin' on out there? This is no Sunday School picnic!”_

_ _

Popcorn guy says, “Christ! Shit. I’m so sorry! Mother fuck.” He clambers over yet another seat into the one next to Gerard and begins brushing popcorn off him furiously. 

_ _

“S’ok.” Gerard mumbles. He glances at the guy, sees two jewel bright eyes glittering purple and black, pushes about two cups full of corn out of his lap. “Really, um…no biggie. Shit happens.”

_ _

The guy, still picking corn from Gerard’s thighs, grins. It’s a tiny, sly, almost coy kind of grin and Gerard is a little startled by it. “That’s a really great philosophy,” the guy says, popping a piece of corn straight from Gerard’s left knee into his mouth and licking his buttery fingers. “Thanks for being a sweetheart, because, you know, you could have been a real dick.”

_ _

The guy throws himself back in his seat and sticks his feet straight up on the one in front of him. Gerard notices he’s wearing mismatched Converse sneakers, one pink one apple green with little grinning skulls drawn all over them. He also notices that the guy’s wearing what seem to be someone else’s jeans (two sizes too small, ripped at the knees) and a huge leopard print coat (two sizes too big and redolent with patchouli and cigarettes). Gerard has a second to wonder if the guy left the house in a hurry or something before he has the remains of a bucket of popcorn shoved under his nose. “You want?” the guy asks.

_ _

“No…ah…thanks…oof,” says Gerard as the guy elbows him kind of hard in the arm and leans right on him. 

_ _

“So, ok,” he stage whispers. “What did I miss?”

_ _

Gerard regains his composure pretty quickly. “Um…the girl is freaking out because she just got attacked, um, by, you know…” He makes the universal arms out lolling head gesture for zombies. Pop corn guy nods, glittering eyes flicking between the action on screen and Gerard’s hands. “And, um, the guy, Ben, is um, flipping out because no one tried to help him fight the um….you know.”

_ _

“Zombies?” asks Popcorn guy, looking at Gerard.

_ _

“Zombies,” says Gerard.

_ _

*8*

_ _

Gerard discovers somewhere in the middle of  _Black Sunday_ (the bit with the iron maiden to be exact) when Popcorn guy stands straight up and screeches along with Barbara Steele, that he has the skinniest thighs Gerard has ever seen. He knows because the guy’s jeans are also the tightest he has ever seen. They sit low on his hips and there’s a glowing strip of skin where his tiny tee shirt (someone else’s tee shirt?) has ridden up. Swooping swirling letters etched there on his skin draw Gerard’s eye but he only gets a glimpse and can’t make out what they say. Popcorn guy’s laughing out loud when he sits back down, it’s kind of infectious.  Gerard just about chokes on the milk dud in his mouth because the guy is grinning straight at him, must have seen him ogling the ink. But he doesn’t seem to care that Gerard’s some kind of ink ogler; Popcorn guy busts out a 10, 000 watt smile bright enough to make the 60 foot screen in front of them look like Christmas lights behind paper by comparison.

_ _

“This film is so sick!” Popcorn cackles.

_ _

“It really is.” Gerard agrees.

_ _

“I’m Frank, by the way!’ Popcorn guy continues, leaning in close, mouth half pressed to Gerard’s ear. He leans back and holds out his hand.

_ _

Gerard says, “Gerard.” And totally fails not to shiver when the skin on skin contact seems to make Frank’s smile even brighter.

_ _

 

_ _

They’re both start singing _Zombie Girlfriend when they stagger from the cinema, gore-giddy and giggling like kids. Frank throws his arm around Gerard’s shoulder and bellows a nasal “S _he's got dead skin around her mouth in fact she's got dead everything! Your girlfriend is a zombie!”  into the night. __

_ _

Gerard decided half way through _Repulsion_ that he and Frank had become sort of weird, movie best-friends or something. Frank was delivering Catherine Denuve’s lines in synch complete with French accent and sniggering at the barely concealed lesbian subtext at the time. 

_ _

As soon as the last lot of credits rolled they’d started arguing over appropriate songs for a Zombie “fan mix”. Which is how, to his great joy, Gerard discovered that Frank’s taste in music is as good at his taste in films.

_ _

Clearly, he’d discovered his pop-culture soul-mate.

_ _

“Um, I don’t know, but I kind of feel like that song doesn’t fit any of those films,” says Gerard, wanting to keep the ‘weird, movie best-friend’ thing going somehow, even though the movies were over. He doesn’t want Frank to stop singing, but he feels like he has to say something.

_ _

“No? Well, you sing one then.” Frank says, squeezing Gerard closer.

_ _

Gerard, who to be fair, is a little over excited and weirded out, and maybe sleep deprived because normally he would _never_ …launches into a fairly good imitation of Glenn Danzig: _“Prime directive…exterminate whatever stands left!”_ He hollers.

_ _

He’s halfway through describing the decimation of planet earth Danzig style when he notices Frank has fallen behind. Gerard turns and sees Frank staring at him, a big dopey grin all over his face. Gerard feels his cheeks flame up with embarrassment. “Um…” he trails off.

_ _

“Gee!” Frank giggles and bounds up to him clapping with frantic abandon. “Gee! That is frikken a-mazing. Seriously.” He grabs Gerard’s hands in his and kind of bounces there. “Seriously. Your voice is so, so cool. You should be in a band or something. Really.”

_ _

From anyone else this would look like some kind of put on, but Frank’s face is so earnest and delighted that Gerard believes he really thinks Gerard sounds good. Gerard’s stomach does a strange, swooping flip and it’s been a while but he recognises it: he does not want to be weird, movie best-friends with Frank. He wants to kiss Frank; Frank whom he has known for approximately 3.5 hours and whom he only saw in full light about 5 minutes ago. 

_ _

Loneliness, thinks Gerard, is a total bitch.

_ _

He tries not to panic; tries not to give in to the urge to run screaming home and call his brother and cry for 25 minutes. It’s a strong urge, but something about Frank’s face makes him push it down, quell it.

_ _

Anyone _would_ want Frank, Gerard thinks. The guy has some kind of crazy field-mouse-cum-elf-prince thing going on: tiny delicate features with wide, dark hazel eyes, clear and earnest and open, set in creamy soft looking skin. He has long, jet coloured lashes and a jagged shock of tousled charcoal hair. Gerard cringes inwardly at the soppy hyperbole running through his thoughts. So superficial. In other, more manly, words, Frank is hot. But the fact that Gerard wants him, and he feels it surging up in his chest, fluttering behind his thudding heart, is nothing short of amazing. Here he was pretty sure a sober Gerard would never really want anything again, and now… _Frank._ In the middle of the street in the middle of the night, Gerard Way is crushing on some guy he just met. He wants to do Jumping Jacks. He is practically fainting with relief.  _This must be what normal feels like_ , he thinks to himself.

_ _

Frank apparently takes Gerard’s gapping stare for incredulity. “You think I’m talking shit, but I’m not. Whatever.” Frank says. He shrugs and turns away.

_ _

“No,” Gerard says, grabbing Frank’s hands back. “No, I believe you believe it.” His throat feels tight, thick. He swallows hard. He tries to smile, but suspects it comes out as more of a feral grimace.

_ _

Frank frowns a little, the tiniest crease forming between his eyes. “Good,” he says. And then he lunges forward and plants an enormous wet, smacking kiss on Gerard’s cheek before giggling and dancing away up the street singing more _Astro Zombies_ at the top of his lungs. Gerard is left standing in the middle of the sidewalk unsure if he should follow or not until Frank dances round and hollers “C’mon Gee! Lets get post-bloodbath PIE!”

_ _

*8*

_ _

Mal’s Diner has orange vinyl seats and little coin operated juke boxes on every table. Low, warm, yellow lights hang over the booths and the windows have chipped, peeling menus painted in greens and purples and blues all over them. Street light filters through the writing painting crazy colours all over the table top. Frank sits opposite Gerard and draws pictures in a pile of sugar he poured on his plate. He smiles as Gerard talks.

_ _

“In that book he didn’t give a flying fuck about anything, right? He just…cuts a swath through Gotham. Black vengeance! Unstoppable! Awesome!” Gee, on some kind of fanboy roll, catches himself and tamps down his enthusiasm. “But ah…enough about the Dark Knight. Um…how about you?”

_ _

Franks is guarded, slight and coy again. “How ‘bout me what?”

_ _

“Tell me about yourself?” asks Gerard, mentally kicking himself for being such a lameass. He soldiers on bravely.

_ _

“What do you want to know?” Frank says, looking up at Gerard from beneath his lashes like he knows something Gerard really doesn’t want him to know. Gerard feels hot and cold all at once. He wants Frank to stop looking at him like that. He wants for Frank to look at him like that for the rest of his life.

_ _

“Well for starters, what do you do? Where are you from? What’s your favourite colour? Who’s your favourite movie star? What kind of music do you like?” Gerard can’t seem to stop his mouth from motoring on. The bigger Frank’s smile gets, the faster his mind goes. “What are your turn ons, your turn offs for that matter? Um…what…I mean…who…do you…um…have a girlfriend?“ 

_ _

Gerard knows the word that’s going to come out of his big, dumb, stupid mouth next. He knows it, but there is nothing he can do to stop it. “A boyfriend?”

_ _

Frank blinks, slow and heavy. “Ok, hold on there, VH1.” He says, laughing. He puts his elbows on the table and rests his head on his knuckles with a deep sigh. “Ask me again, one by one.”

_ _

Gerard starts breathing again. “Ok…” He shakes his head and blunders on. “What do you do?”

_ _

“Um…I don’t remember.” Frank says looking down at the table.

_ _

“Ok, Where are you from?” 

_ _

“Jersey City,” says Frank, grinning up at Gerard. “The Jerz born and bred.”

_ _

Gerard grins back. “Me too. Belleville.”

_ _

“Cool,” says Frank.

_ _

“Ok…Um, What’s your favourite colour?”

_ _

“Well, Gee, I’m a ‘winter’ so I like black, black and shades of charcoal. In the summer I stick with…black.” Frank puts on a mock earnest pout which cracks Gerard up.

_ _

“Seriously? Black?” 

_ _

Frank shrugs. “I like red too.”

_ _

“Ooookaaay…” Gerard laughs. “Next! Who’s your favourite movie star?”

_ _

Gerard’s barely finished the sentence before Frank blurts out, “Jamie Lee Curtis.”

_ _

“What the…?”

_ _

“Man…Halloween,” explains Frank, twisting the backs of his hands towards Gerard so he can see the letters tattooed on the knuckles. H-A-LL-O on the right, W-E-E-N on the left. “It’s like, my birthday also, so…”

_ _

“No shit?”

_ _

“None, man. How sick is that?” 

_ _

“Totally awesome!”

_ _

“I know!”

_ _

“Ok, this is all good stuff Frank. Thanks for your honesty.” Gerard continues with mock earnestness. “Um, what are you turn ons?” Gerard asks as the waitress refills his coffee cup. He proceeds to pour about seventeen ounces of sugar into it.

_ _

Frank watches the sugar fold into the black coffee. “Hmmm…Danzig’s voice…a man who can appreciate the finer things in life, like sugar…” 

_ _

Gerard puts the sugar down with a thump and starts stirring. 

_ _

“Monster movies, 60’s Horror, 70’s Horror for that matter, um…zombies, pie…” 

_ _

“Zombies?”

_ _

“Sure,” says Frank, leaning forward and letting his jaw go slack. “ _If you loved me, you let me eat your brains…_ ” he drones, before straightening up and winking. “Fear is sexy, Gee.”

_ _

Gerard splutters on his first mouthful of sweet, sweet coffee and Frank barks a short sharp laugh.

_ _

“Sorry,” says Gerard, though he has no idea why he’s apologising. 

_ _

“S’ok,” says Frank, handing a wad of paper napkins to Gerard. 

_ _

They trade grins some more. Gerard cheeks are beginning to hurt a little, but he can’t stop smiling. He tries not to read too much into the fact that Frank can’t seem to stop either.

_ _

“So, turn off’s?”

_ _

“Carnivores,” says Frank, not missing a beat, “Republican’s, homophobes, people from Delaware.”

_ _

“Delaware?”

_ _

“Fuckers,” says Frank with a mock snarl. They both laugh.

_ _

“Ok, musical influences? I mean, you seem cool, but I want guilty secrets now. You’re alone in your bedroom with nothing but the radio on and a hair brush in your hand. Who are you listening too?”

_ _

“Nothing but the radio on?” asks Frank, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow.

_ _

Gerard cannot fucking believe he said that either, but he’s brazening his way through that horror and hoping like fuck Frank will follow him. “Nope.”

_ _

“I grew up on Fugazi, Rites of Spring, Promise Ring you know?” says Frank, chewing a nail and letting his eyes drift away from Gerard. Gerard’s eyes are as big as saucers because he does know, he really truly does. It’s like Gerard Way’s Guide to Music That Will Save Your Life or something. “Also the classics; Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Misfits, Ramones… But, sometimes, when I’m like, on my own or some shit…and you’d better not laugh dickwad. Seriously. “

_ _

“Go on. It can’t be worse than the shit I used to listen to at Art School…”

_ _

“Oh? You went to Art School? Awesome.”

_ _

“Go. On,” Gerard says, not letting Frank off the hook for one second.

_ _

“Ok, so, like she’s a legend, so you can’t really fault me for it but…” And Frank pauses. “I maybe, maybe have danced _with nothing but the radio on_ ,” he says leering across the table a little, “Maybe to some Cyndi Lauper once. Twice. Maybe. Jesus.”

_ _

“No fucking way.” 

_ _

Frank looks up sharply. 

_ _

“ _True Colours_ or _A Night to Remember_?” says Gerard quickly and his burst of fannish glee is rewarded with a blinding grin from Frank. 

_ _

Gerard is pretty stoked though: Cyndi is like one of his childhood constants. But the way Frank looks at him then, kind of stunned and delighted himself, Gerard would guess, all soft and wrinkle browed, with an earnest kind of pleasure, floors him. Gerard is pretty sure no one has ever looked at him like that. Ever. In his whole pathetic life. 

_ _

“I…um, I sort of liked _At Last_.” Frank says slowly. “Show tunes…you know? Which, ah, maybe answers your unspoken question…” he smirks and looks at the smiley face he’s drawn in the sugar. He reaches for the bottle of ketchup and drips a big red blob on the smiley’s forehead.

_ _

It takes Gerard a second or two to remember what his next question was supposed to be because Frank just turned his plate into a sticky, gooey Watchmen reference so Gerard’s head is actually going to explode. But then what he was supposed to ask next comes to him and heat flares in his cheeks, and flares again twice as hot when he gets Franks reference show tunes.

_ _

“Oh. Oh! Right. So…Do you…um, you have a boyfriend.” It’s not a question, except for all the ways that it is a question, and the way he can’t look Frank in the eye.

_ _

“Um…ask me that one a little bit later,” Frank says, with a dismissive flap of his hand. 

_ _

Gerard’s heart sinks. Ok, he thinks, ok. “Last one then?” says Gerard, who is a masochistic bastard.

_ _

“Right” says Frank, sitting bolt upright and looking alert.

_ _

“In a theatre full of empty seats, why’d you pick the one next to mine?” Gerard didn’t actually know he was going to ask that until he heard himself say it. If he could be alone right now he’d take the opportunity of punch himself in the face quite, quite hard. But what’s done is done. Frank will either think Gerard’s a needy fucker or he’ll humour him. Gerard has no idea which would be worse. They both seem equally likely to gut him.

_ _

Frank looks confused. “’Cause you looked like a nice guy,” he says as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. Gerard feels something tightly bound unclench in his chest. “Besides,” Frank continues, “I had to dump my popcorn all over you, dumbass. I’ll get the cheque. Where to next?”

_ _

*8*

_ _

Gerard is pretty sure he’s in a coma. He’s in a coma and he’s had an aneurism and this is a brain spasm induced hallucination, because his life is not this awesome. Not ever. 

_ _

He took Frank back to the shop. Gerard had the keys still and he made an educated guess that Frank would think it was kind of cool. He was completely unprepared for the what kind of cool Frank would deem it.

_ _

“ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?” Frank screamed, stuffed his huge hairy coat into Gerard’s arms and disappeared into the rows of back issues.

_ _

“Humnf yuff wanna shee the shop?” Gerard mumbled from beneath a pile of patchouli stinking coat.

_ _

“THE FUCK!?” Frank screeches as he pulled several books from their slots and began piling them up to one side. He stopped and yanked his wallet from his back pocket and began a frantic count of ones and fives. “Can I get these? I can get these right? These are mine now? I have the exact change so, they’re mine.”

_ _

“Um…Frank?”

_ _

“I know you’re shut an’ all, but like, Green Lantern #117. One – one- frikken – seven, Gee. I’ve been looking for this for _fourteen years_.”

_ _

“Oh yeah, it came in yesterday…um…holy shit, are you going to cry?”

_ _

“No. Yes. But I’m just, you know?”

_ _

Gerard put Frank’s coat to one side and stepped up to him and took his hand. “I know.”

_ _

Frank smiled up at him, not actually crying, but pretty damp in the eye region anyway. “Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “Yeah, you do.”

_ _

They spent a couple of hours going through boxes and Gerard tried to explain to Frank why he was wrong about Spiderman (“He’s not _whining_ , per se, he’s _examining_ his lot, his place in the world, you know?”) and Frank tried to win Gerard over to his theories about Wonder Woman. (“She is the frikken lynchpin, Gee. She is like the soul of Justice League, right? They’d be nothing without her.”) And then, just as Gerard was getting Spiderman #1 down from the case behind the counter and showing Frank the incredible five colour art work on page two, Frank leant over the book and kissed the corner of Gerard’s mouth.

_ _

 

_ _

And now Gerard is here, sprawled across his messed up bed with Frank above him stroking the line of his jaw, kissing his throat, pulling at the collar of his tee shirt and mouthing his shoulder.

_ _

“Tell me what you want, Gee. Anything you want. Tell me,” Frank says and kisses the answer right out of Gerard’s mouth. He’s gentle, Gerard is surprised to find, tender. It’s not like he had much time to imagine what it might be like – they’ve only known each other for five minutes. But if he had, he would have guessed Frank would be frenetic, agitated, rough and tumble, wham bam. But he’s not, and Gerard doesn’t know if it’s wise to be so glad about it. If this is a one night stand, then he doesn’t want to be like this: so tender, so gentle.

_ _

Because it can only be one night, right? No matter how fluttery and warm his insides feel, no matter how achy his general chest area is getting, no matter how many times he has to clamp his mouth shut before the L word slips out; this is going to be a one night stand. Gerard is out of practice, that’s all. No one _feels_ stuff about someone they met for the first time, in a theatre, a few hours ago. No one. 

_ _

The slow burning coil of lust in his belly flares; he tilts his hips against the thigh Frank has pushed between his legs.

_ _

“Tell me, Gee,” Frank whispers as he pushes back. 

_ _

Gerard can feel Frank, hard and hot and ready. Gerard wants so much, doesn’t know where to start. But he wants to see Frank most of all, see his skin, smell it, taste it. He wants to kiss Frank for the next five or six years and just forget that he only has this one night, and most of that is already gone. 

_ _

“Take off your clothes,” Gerard sighs. And Frank pulls back, kneels above him and drags his tee shirt up, slow and deliberate. 

_ _

Gerard all but chokes on his own tongue when he sees Frank’s skin. The swooping lettering across his belly, the diving swallows with black crosses for eyes, spider’s webs and H bombs and vows and curses. Frank, the Painted Man, the Pict, the elf. Gerard surges up to touch and Frank pushes his chest into Gerard’s eager hands. 

_ _

“You’re a…you’re a…” Gerard can’t finish the sentence. Frank is a living, breathing, walking, talking comic book of flesh. He thinks: _I’ve died and gone to heaven._

_ _

“Oh God…” Frank whines, tilting his head back, eyes fluttering closed. Gerard licks and sucks and strokes; catches the tight, hot nub of Frank’s nipple between his teeth and bites. Frank all but wilts in his arms.

_ _

Gerard knows then, knows what he wants, what Frank wants. He feels himself collect together, the ragged strands of himself tightening into an unbreakable cord. He pushes Frank back onto the bed, unbuttons Frank’s jeans and pulls them slowly off, following them with his mouth and hard, sucking kisses. 

_ _

Frank is naked beside him then, though Gerard is still dressed. Frank’s arms are raised above his head and he is stretched out, pliant, waiting. It makes Gerard feel like a god. He strokes Frank’s body with slow, methodical calm, mapping all the places that make Frank shiver, that make his muscles twitch. “I want to fuck you, Frank,” he says looking into Frank’s half closed eyes. And Frank says yes and lets his legs fall open.

_ _

Frank is hard, wet; his cock bouncing gently against his stomach in time with his breath. Gerard cups his balls, rolls them in his palm, and strokes the soft, downy skin covering them. Frank moans, twitches his hips as Gerard lets his hand slip further back, feels the smooth skin behind Franks balls turn puckered, damp as he dips deeper. Frank’s breath shudders out of his chest as Gerard strokes him. “Is that good?” he asks, looking at Franks face. His eyes are rolled back, his cheeks glisten with sweat. “Frank.”  He says. And Frank whispers: “Yes,” breathes it.

_ _

“Don’t stop, Gee,” he pleads. “Don’t, oh. Oh…”

_ _

But Gerard drags his finger tips back up and over Frank’s balls, strokes Frank’s stomach, low, just above the hair on his belly. Frank whines.

_ _

“In the bedside table,” Gerard says. “Can you…?” And Frank scrambles up onto all fours and yanks the bedside table open in a flurry of movement. Gerard chuffs a laugh and leans in to kiss Frank’s hip. He strokes the soft skin over his flank, dipping his fingers back between Frank’s ass cheeks. Franks stills; he groans and pushes back a little against Gerard’s hand; his head drops down between his shoulders which are shaking with tension.

_ _

“You like me touching you here,” Gerard says, and strokes over Franks hole again. He shuffles back and watches Frank’s opening twitch and clench as he strokes it.

_ _

“Fuck.” Frank groans as he slumps further forward, pushing his ass higher. “It’s not…I’m not supposed to…” he whines, but it ends in a sob and desperate pulse of Frank’s hips. Gerard sees pre-come actually drip off the end of Franks cock. It makes his mouth water. He wonders if Frank could come from this alone.

_ _

Gerard thinks: Please, God, don’t let me be hallucinating _any_ of this. 

_ _

He leans forward and licks around his fingers. 

_ _

“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” Frank groans, muffled where his face is smushed into one of Gee’s pillows.

_ _

Gerard pulls Franks cheeks further apart and pushes in deep with his tongue, flicking the tip against the tension in Frank’s muscles. He pulls back and laves the flat of his tongue over his hole. Gee pulls back. “You taste so good, Frank,” he says and plunges his tongue into him again.

_ _

For a second it’s as if Gee has stepped outside himself, and looking back he sees someone else: the Gerard he is in his imagination, his day-dreams – The Uber-Gee, he thinks with not a little rising hysteria. This afternoon he was a loser comic geek with nothing but $20 and a ratty old army jacket to his name. Now he’s making this perfect creature, the kind of guy he’s only ever seen in his most self indulgent fantasies, fall to pieces. He honestly did not know he had it in him. In his heart he’s already starting guess that it’s Frank. Frank has bought this out in him. Frank who, after one night, seems to be just about everything Gee has ever wanted. He thinks, _this is really gonna fucking smart in the morning when Frank ducks out before you even wake up, douche._  But that’s Gerard talking. Gee tells him to shut the fuck up and make Frank come already. He gets on that straight away by snaking a hand between Franks trembling legs and slowly, slowly jacking him in time with slick slide of Gee’s tongue in his ass.

_ _

Frank is twitching all over, moaning and writhing against Gee’s mouth. “I’m gonna, I’m gonna…” He stutters, hips jerking forward, and then he does in five or six hot, wet spurts over Gees tight fist. Frank’s arms buckle and he collapses forward onto the bed with a long, low groan. Gerard slides his hand out from under him and strokes Frank’s ass, humming with content.

_ _

Frank gasps a few deep breaths and flips himself over. The effort leaves him panting.

_ _

“Holy mother of fuck,” he moans and reaches out for Gee. “Hold me, for the love of Christ,” he says and drags Gee down on top of him. He snuggles into Gee’s side and Gee feels an almost overwhelming flood of relief that Frank wants to stay a little longer at least. “What he fuck did you do to me?” Frank whines.

_ _

“Ate you out?” says Gee a little fuzzily. It’s like he just came himself, but as Frank presses against him he can feel how hard his own cock still is.

_ _

“No shit, Flesh Maestro. That was fucking awesome,” Frank growls into Gee’s chest. 

_ _

Frank pulls Gee’s hips up against his own. Gee doesn’t really mean to, but the new pressure makes his hips stutter forward before he can stop himself.

_ _

Frank leans back a little, reads Gee’s face. “Gee? You didn’t…?” He looks down between them and gently presses his hand against the bulging front of Gee’s jeans. “You didn’t get off?” Frank’s voice is low and quiet, his eyes are tender. “You want to be inside me,” he says, not a question. He sounds a little delighted, a little awed. “I want that. I want you that close, Gee.” He starts to open Gee’s jeans, tentative, shy. Frank is shivering when he says: “Fuck me? Please?” 

_ _

Gee doesn’t wait to be asked twice, shrugs his way out of his tee shirt, pushes his jeans and boxers off with one hand as Frank clings to him, not hindering, but not exactly helping either. Gee can’t help but feel the pride rise up in his heart. He had no idea he could be such a ‘guy’ about stuff like this. He fucking loves that Frank has turned to Jello. He fucking loves that he’s done that to him. It’s several kinds of appalling really, but he’s too turned on by Frank’s need to be close to really care that much. He reaches for the lube and Frank wimpers. Gee leans back and slicks his fingers with the clear, cold gel. 

_ _

Frank stretches out beside him again and pulls one leg up. His eyes don’t leave Gee’s face and he’s silent as Gee strokes over and around his hole again. He dips one finger inside and Frank shudders out a breath. Gee feels him opening to his fingers, presses in further. He pulls back and adds another finger. Frank is tight and hot and Gee wants to be there, right in there, as close to Frank as anyone can get.

_ _

He sits back, watches the goose bumps rise up over Frank’s skin, rolls the condom over his cock, and stretches out above Frank.   “Do you want me, Frank?” He asks his eyes locked to Franks. 

_ _

“I do. I fucking, fucking do. Fuck me, Gee,” Frank whines, pushes his hips up and reaches for Gee with grabby hands.

_ _

So Gee fucks him, slow and deep, twisting and winding his hips into Frank’s, nailing him into the bed. Frank’s skin is pink all over, his cock semi-hard between their bellies, his voice a constant whine and moan and gasp as Gee fucks into him. Gee can’t last, can’t possibly last, but it never ends. He can feel the pressure building but as he looks at Frank, delights in the sweet, slick agonies etched on his face, it never crests. 

_ _

“Oh, Gee. Ima…again…” he gasps, pushing a noodle limp arm between them and taking hold of his cock. Sweat drips from Gee’s face onto Frank’s lip and Frank’s pink, wet tongue darts out to lap it up; this is the exact moment Gee finally feels the crest loom into sight. 

_ _

“It’s never…It’s never…never like this. Every…fucking…thrust…” Frank grunts and it’s like mind reading or something, because Gee knows. He mother-fucking knows.

_ _

When they come they’re clinging to one another, barely moving, rocking, so deep, so full, Gee can’t tell where he ends and Frank begins. 

_ _

Afterwards, silent and trembling, Frank curls against Gee’s side clutching Gee’s hand to his chest. They sleep.

_ _

*8*

_ _

When Gee wakes up it’s still dark, but the sky out the open fire-escape door is midnight blue instead of black.  The bed next to him is empty and his heart sinks. Then he sees a thin white trail of cigarette smoke drift past the open door and he knows Frank is still there.

_ _

Pulling on a pair of sweats and his army jacket, and dragging a couple of blankets with him – his place is hot as fuck inside, but outside it’s New Jersey in November – he takes a tentative step out onto the fire-escape. Frank is sitting, legs dangling through the railings, a ratty old blanket wrapped round him like some kind of weird, tiny, smoking babushka. 

_ _

Frank glances over his shoulder as Gee steps out onto the landing. His face is thunderous, in the wan lights from the street below it looks a little like he’s been crying. 

_ _

“What’s wrong? Um…Did I do something? What did I do?” Gee half staggers, half leans towards Frank, unsure if he should stay or leave him to whatever regrets or recriminations Frank might be indulging in. 

_ _

“You didn’t do anything.”

_ _

“Did I…you…hurt yourself?” Gee can’t let it alone. He lifts one of the blankets and drapes it over Frank’s already blanketed shoulders. Frank smiles up at him before his face crumples.

_ _

“Gee,” he says, “I’ve got something to tell you.” He snakes a hand out from beneath the blankets and wraps it round Gee’s ankle. “I didn’t just… happen to be in that theatre last night,” he sighs deeply, lets go of Gee’s leg and scrubs a hand over his sticky looking face. “I was paid to be there.”

_ _

“You, um, work at the cinema?”

_ _

Frank rolls his eyes and looks up at Gee. “No I don’t work at the cinema.” Frank hitches the blanket a little tighter. His voice is tiny when he says: “I’m an escort.”

_ _

Gee, suddenly has a lead boulder in his gut – cold, bitter, weighing a ton. He has no idea what he’s just heard so barely aware of speaking when he says: “You’re a rent boy?”

_ _

Frank pulls himself up from the edge of the landing, pulls his blanket cocoon closer round his shoulders and squares up to Gee. “I’m an _escort_. There’s frikken difference you know, asshole.” Frank kind of deflates a little then. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s not…”

_ _

Gee stands there clutching a blanket of his own with no clue what to do. He feels…utterly ridiculous. It really fucking hurts.

_ _

“You know the shop?” says Frank, holding Gee’s eye and looking a damned sight more dignified than Gee thinks he would under the same circumstances.

_ _

“Where I work?” says Gee.

_ _

“The same. Someone else who works there arranged to have me meet you.”

_ _

Gee sits then, heavily on the broken banana recliner he dragged out there last summer which is covered in rust and it groans warily under his weight. “Brian?” he says. “My boss?”

_ _

“Brian, yeah, that guy. The plan, such as it was, was for me to bump into you, pick you up, spend the night and skip out after you fell asleep. That old classic.” Frank continues, edging closer to Gee as he does. He stops when Gee looks at him hard. “I was gonna write you a note and say…I dunno, that I have frikken cancer or something and I’m going to Alaska to let wolves eat me or some shit. You know, like this was my last blast…”

_ _

“Are you fucking…? Please tell me you’re shitting me,” says Gee. He can’t feel the cold, or anything else, but he’s shaking like a leaf.

_ _

“Look, it’s here.” Frank holds a piece of paper out to Gee, it trembles in the air between them when Gee doesn’t take it. “It says dear Gee. I couldn’t write anymore. I don’t want to not ever see you again. In fact it’s fucking retarded to not ever see you again.” 

_ _

Gee sees that Frank is actually crying now. Fat, wet, frustrated looking, tears slide from the corner of his eyes. His nose is bright red. Gee can’t move.

_ _

“Last night was…It’s not supposed to fucking be like that, you asshole. You’re supposed to whale away on me and pass out and I’m supposed to suppress feelings of worthlessness and self loathing and…and go on with my life, rationalising my appalling life choices as if we never frikken met.”  

_ _

“The fuck?” Gee stands again and grabs Frank by his shoulders. “Frank, Jesus. You shouldn’t talk about yourself like that. Not ever. You should love yourself. You’re…you deserve…If I made you feel like that…I would never want you to feel like that.”

_ _

“I don’t! You didn’t!” cries Frank, clutching at Gee’s hands. “You didn’t make me feel like that… You made me feel, feel, like…” Frank swallows. “That’s the problem, see? How am I supposed to go back to…to _that_ when I feel…I feel.” Frank bites his lip, breathes deeply, nostrils flaring. “So I said to myself, ‘Frank, come clean. Let him know what’s what and if he tells you to go back to McCracken and fuck yourself, then go back to McCracken and fuck yourself.’”

_ _

“Who…or what is a McCracken?” asks Gee.

_ _

“My…um…pimp, I guess,” says Frank, scuffing his toe against the railing next to them.

_ _

“You have a pimp.” Gee is back in ‘How the fuck is this my life?’ land again.

_ _

“”Yup.”

_ _

“A real life pimp.”

_ _

“Yup.”

_ _

“Is he…from Scotland?”

_ _

“No, he’s from Utah.” Frank says as if it’s some weird surprise fact you’d never guess in a million years. Well, Gee would never have guessed alright.

_ _

Gee looks at Frank’s scruffy, tear stained face, thinks about the trembling, gentle man in his arms last night, the warmth of his breath against Gee’s neck as he slept Gerard thinks about how he has been asleep his whole life up to now. He thinks, ‘ _Frank can’t go back, can’t ever go back…and neither can I._ ’ He knows what he’s going to do. 

_ _

“Gee…Gee,” says Frank, reaching out for him again. “You’re only my third trick. I hate this job and I fucking hate McCracken. But I don’t…I don’t hate you. I… _don’t_ …hate you.”

_ _

Gee swallows hard. Frank, bundled up and looking like a felt covered Michelin man, is shivering, plumes of white breath in the air between them. Gee pulls him into his arms, pushing the blankets out of the way, shoving his arms up under Frank’s clothes.

_ _

“I _don’t_ hate you either. Kind of a lot,” he says and squeezes Frank tight. Frank hiccups into his chest. Gee pretends not to notice how much the hiccups sound like sobs.

_ _

“You’d better not be fuckin’ teasing me,” mutters Frank into Gee’s neck.

_ _

“You’d better not be fuckin’ teasing me,” says Gee and he tilts Franks damp face up to his, sealing the deal with a kiss.

_ _

*8*

_ _

 

 

  



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